Cold and wet, leading to more cold. It was pretty cold and wet yesterday both at the BOL and in Houston. Although cold is relative and it is going to get COLD soon…
I did get the dishwasher installed yesterday, and the wall insulated. I didn’t quite get the kitchen back together but it’s pretty close.
Ran into my fishing neighbor on the way out the door and he’s fine, just been busy. I hadn’t seen him in a couple of weeks, so I was starting to get worried.
The propane company didn’t refill my tank and left a note that they needed to talk to me. Well, I found out why. They don’t like the type of flexible piping I used. Which sucks, because it was marked on the packaging for direct burial, but I didn’t keep the package. Everything I can find online supports their position. I did find the original amazon listing, which says “suitable for burial installation”, but I don’t think they’ll take that vs. what they know. I might have to dig it up and replace it (or put it in a conduit, which is only specified by size not material). I can’t tell you how much that would suck. I will be meeting with their guy after Christmas. We’ve got enough gas to get there easily. So for now I’m punting.
Today I need to arrange pickup for my antenna tower, some geotextile I’m hoping will help stabilize some of my yard, and some stone veneer that I won. I will need a trailer, and to figure out the schedule to combine the pickups and get the stuff up to the BOL, and unloaded. It’s all big and heavy. Nothing I haven’t managed before, but I don’t usually have my mom coming for a visit, or Christmas looming… or just a day or two to make it happen.
But that’s life.
Oh, and there is planning for extraordinary cold weather thrown on top of all that… in three different cities.
Joy.
Any day above ground is a good day. Keep stacking.
nick
We are seeing Peak Amazon as well as The Legend of Jeff, Family Guy, Drives a Honda, …
Barnes & Noble was busy when we went in the other day. Kinda surprising since the prices are not competitive with Amazon unless you need it in a hurry and shipping makes the deal a wash.
I’m going back today because I can’t do better on a specific DVD set my wife wants and even Amazon is down to third party sellers.
I scored something huge for my kids last week at Best Buy via the app, but I’m not going to believe it until I pick the item up tomorrow. The kids know I’m not an app person since being in on the first pass of development on the Death Star’s Uverse Mobile fiasco.
We have two subterranean propane tanks, both installed by the gas supply company. The pipes from tank to house are heavy-walled rigid copper, laid in a conduit of PVC drainpipe. I do not have think they would have accepted flexible pipe.
I hope you don’t need to do yours over, Nick.
@Lynn
I tested out of several classes. Drafting was one.
There are no email addresses on the Contact page. I checked there before I even posted my email here.
There’s a nice form that I suspect goes to Rick H.
I sent you an email.
Assuming you trust your lawyer, you can get a lot of peace of mind by letting him deal with the craziness as far as possible. He can instruct the neighbors that they are not to contact you directly.
The reduced stress is well worth the cost.
Visual Basic before .NET was great for simple business applications. It’s trendy to hate on VB, but it really was good, even if the results weren’t “pretty” on the screen. When MS went to .NET, we went to Java. Nowadays, everyone implements everything for the browser. Which means JavaScript, CSS and using frameworks like Angular or React. Not my cup of tea – programming for browsers is not enjoyable. Also, it’s frankly dumb: why should you have to fire up a browser, with all of its overhead and vulnerabilities, to run a program? But this is just the current turn of the wheel: centralization, everything in the cloud. We will inevitably see a return to more local installations – we’ve been here several times before…
As far as the low-code/no-code tools: They are only good for simple things, and you had better not want robustness or security. Like all the Excel hackers out there: people can do great things for themselves, but you sure don’t want them distributing that stuff to others. The consequences are completely unknowable, not only because of the tools, but because of the lack of requirements analysis, system design, and testing.
Re: Math. I always enjoyed math, and did well at it – especially considering I had no study skills. Those I didn’t learn until well into my college career. I don’t have any regrets, because I like how my life has turned out so far. I do wonder what would have happened if I had been a good student from the start though sometimes…
My son liked math until third grade, where he had a bad teacher that turned him off to it. I didn’t push him. In middle school, he went for the regular math classes instead of the the advanced classes. All his other classes were advanced. This became a slight issue for him in high school. He was essentially a class behind, so he couldn’t take AP Calc his senior year. I made sure he understood way back in middle school that it didn’t matter. It was more important to be comfortable and confident. I also let me know that even if he was able to take AP Calc and tested out of the first semester of college Calc I, I’d recommend he take it anyways.
The end result? He finished up Calc I this semester with an A. He really enjoys math ( I hope so, since his major is Mech E). He even arranged his schedule so he could have the same professor for Calc II.
Even though Visual Studio 6 was sunset decades ago, Microsoft pledged to support pre .NET Visual Basic 6 applications running on the desktop through the end of life of Windows 10, and the VB6 runtime is installed on every copy of Win 10 Pro … maybe even Home too. That was the price Redmond paid to get big IT shops moved off of Windows 7.
Visual Basic 6 apps will be around in Corporate America for a very long time.
The browser-based GUI toolkits are dumb, but Microsoft never presented a simple alternative. Even Microsoft’s own vaunted cross platform Visual Studio Code is browser based.
I despise Visual Studo Code and the laziness behind both its creation and use on Linux.
If you’re using VS Code on Mac OS X instead of Xcode, you need professional help.
I have more qualifications for professional help than just VS Code.
@SteveF, I don’t know if this is a ThingTM anymore, but you might consider an aptitude-interest test for your daughter. She could probably take one online. When I was that age and beyond, aptitude tests were very common, but the interest part was nearly nonexistent. I finally took one after almost ten years out of college, and it opened my eyes to new opportunities.
I had always scored pretty highly in aptitudes that would make a good design engineer, but as time wore on, I began to lose interest. I had done several types of design, but always wanted to advance. I had an uncle who was a CPA who worked for General Motors, but had worked into labor relations and advanced nicely up the corporate ladder. He was a very smart guy, and I thought I might be able to do something like he did. I had worked half-way through an MBA in college, so I tried to continue. The first course I took was in corporate law, where I found out that I had the wrong skill set to be a lawyer. That was my first big eye opener, but a negative one, so I stuck with engineering. Paid the bills.
A few years later, I made my last career move, where I was evaluated for aptitude-interest. Before the test, we were told that the interest part would likely not be surprising, as most people know their interests. Wrong! I found out I had strong leadership interests. That encouraged me to seek supervision and eventually the dual ladder of project management. I really liked that. A critical element was that the place I worked did not have credentialism, especially for management. I was able to break into it, where I did well enough to have a fulfilling late career. My engineering background was essential, because I had learned why some things are easy and others are hard. I could anticipate this and plan accordingly. I contributed to some very successful projects. Maybe I made a difference.
Even this wasn’t enough for me, so I did some volunteer work that was very fulfilling. Volunteer work is the only field I know where success can bring a huge increase in compensation… just not financial (10 x 0 still equals zero.) Ironically, I was able to do things as a volunteer that I wasn’t allowed to do on the clock.
I say this not to blow my own horn, but t to encourage your daughter to find out what she can do well and like, and to find a way to get in the door. You and she can figure out the rest.
Oh, and maybe she could be a lawyer. Folks here seem to envy their ability to profit in nearly all jobs. Seriously, I have known some good lawyers, and they are (sadly) essential in modern society. I couldn’t be a good lawyer, but then, I also couldn’t be a surgeon. Ick!
44F this morning but the sun is out.
wrt flex pipe for gas, there are a couple that are approved. One is like pex, and they use it for 1/2 ” up to giant trunk lines in neighborhoods. It is absolutely prohibited for above ground use, probably because it would melt in a fire, or cut with a knife. The other is a coated smooth aluminum or copper tubing, where the plastic jacket provides some protection. It is reasonably flexible, but no more damage resistant that CSST or copper tubing, that I can see.
The stuff I used is called CSST generically, and is coated corrugated stainless steel. It’s like a heavy duty version of the corrugated appliance connectors that are common here.
Apparently, there is a blanket ban in Texas on burying CSST unless it’s in a conduit sleeve. Seems like BS to me. If you can put it in concrete, and it’s safe enough for hollow walls, and protected by the continuous plastic outer coating, there can’t be a technical reason why it’s disallowed.
“But the conduit protects it” – yeah so? A back hoe is gonna mess up the copper tube that is approved, same for pressing on a rock, or any other damage scenario. It’s also suspicious that the code requires a “conduit” but doesn’t specify or require anything specific. What a conduit DOES do is negate the flexibility of the CSST which is it’s main competitive advantage.
n
added. never hit submit…
We still need a clown face on the submit button.
@Jenny, I guess you can’t put your car in a garage. Too bad. My first thought was that you shouldn’t start and idle a car in cold weather. As soon as the engine will take a load, now well under a minute, DRIVE it. Keep the rpm down, and the load light for about a mile, or until the coolant temp comes up to normal, then increase. A highway drive of at least ten miles is good. Sorry, I know that is hard to do, but will pay off in longer engine life, much longer than those extra miles. Same for the extra gasoline used.
Some other hints, use full synthetic oil. Use the lightest grade recommended in your owner’s manual. Use a block heater. Dipstick heaters will coke the oil, and the debris can be harmful. An oil pan heater might be OK, but a block heater, one installed in place of one of the core plugs, is ideal. A battery heater is also strongly recommended. It should be thermostatically controlled, so the battery only gets to no higher that about 80F. An insulating sleeve around the battery is also recommended. Many new cars come with them, but some mechanics discard them – stupid. Their normal purpose is to keep the battery cooler if it is in the engine compartment.
Also remember that other fluids, such as transmission (especially manual) fluid, should also be selected for cold weather. In extremes, differential oil should be selected for cold. Your Mini probably has diff fluid shared with the trans, so not an issue.
If you do any short trip driving in cold weather, a highway drive of at least 20 miles, once a week, is practically mandatory. Also mandatory is to watch for condensation in the oil: a milky look. When I lived in cold country (lows from zero to the 20s F,) I changed oil every two months in the winter. Sometimes even that wasn’t enough.
As was said, cars don’t like cold weather. They will live very short lives. Fuel injection and positive crankcase ventilation have helped a lot. We had a Toyota that developed stuck rings at 42k miles just because of short trip driving. This, in spite of those frequent oil changes. It burned oil, and the only remedy was an overhaul. Not needed, because car was totaled by a rear-ender.
Do all these things, and you can get good life from a car, but don’t expect more than ten years or so. Less is common. Voice of (sad) experience.
I need that 😛
Well, this would certainly explain Windows 11 and Redmond’s obsession with closing the hole in the graphics stack which enables piracy of the streaming services. I doubt it will happen, however, since, at a minimum, it would send Apple looking for Azure alternatives for “cloud” services for their streaming media devices with Oracle desperate to gain traction in that space.
Wishful thinking on the part of some journalist holding FAANG? Like the constant stories about Apple buying out Tony at TSLA from a few years ago?
https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/netflix-will-be-next-microsofts-shopping-list-2022-12-20/
My ‘smallest room in the house’ reading is mostly trade magazines. This month’s Machine Design, in addition to being very thin, has several pages of articles about the new “green” hydrogen economy.
Nothing but tongue bath and b.s.
If you needed something to fisk, the article about building hydrogen powered dirigibles to transport liquid hydrogen has ample fodder. They can use the hydrogen that boils off to float the aircraft! or to power the fuel cells driving the electric motors! And it can carry cargo on its return flight (10 sea containers worth, with no mention of how to load or unload while the blimp is spinning around its mooring tower… in fact specific mention of loading and unloading only LIQUIDS.) And modern sensors, weather predictions, and a bunch of other things will keep it from getting all ‘splody, for sure! Each dirigible will be available for the low low price of $180M, we swear! Probably! for reference, an standard ISO 40 ft tank is $12K so even 10 of them, the capacity of the NuHindenberg, would be what, 2 orders of magnitude less? And each blimp replaces 10 trucks… how many freaking blimps would you need?
And the same company has a plan to put pipes inside pipes inside existing pipelines to transport hydrogen… presumably gaseous since otherwise it would freeze everything… the outer pipe would be filled with a “sweeper” inert gas, that is pumped to remove the hydrogen that leaks thru the transport pipe… no mention of where you get all the inert gas, what you do with it once it is suffused with hydrogen, how you get these pressurized gasses into and out of the existing pipelines, how you convince a pipeline operator to take their pipeline out of service long enough to do all the “armwaved” work…..
Freaking boondoggle. Why not transport the water? or the electricity? We know very well how to do that.
n
(for a bonus, the next article repeats the hoary old saw about covering the sahara in solar panels to power the world. No mention of where those panels come from…or how much of the world’s manufacturing capacity would be needed to do so.)
Full-employment for the population of Northern Africa: Cleaning the dust off the panels. Why learn to code when you can be in the foundations of green tech?
Today is the 3rd day of Hannukah, so I thought I’d provide some lighthearted Hannukah music, one of my favorites.
Tom Lehrer’s “Spending Hannuah in Santa Monica”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LslsgH3-UFU&ab_channel=analog36
The only solar panel I want is an orbital solar array, collecting the sunlight without atmospheric attenuation.
And I want to be in charge of keeping the gigawatt ultraviolet beam aimed where it’s supposed to go.
Full-employment for the population of Northern Africa: Cleaning the dust off the panels. Why learn to code when you can be in the foundations of green tech?
BTW, the Starlink dish has automatic snow and ice removal using heat. The dish is powered via the cable. The minimum power going to the dish is 60 watts, I have no idea what is going on, maybe the motor is continually on to hold the sky view position. The inside unit is quite warm with that transformer going.
I wonder if they could use those headlight wipers and washers that Mercedes uses on their upscale cars to clean the solar panels ?
The only solar panel I want is an orbital solar array, collecting the sunlight without atmospheric attenuation.
And I want to be in charge of keeping the gigawatt ultraviolet beam aimed where it’s supposed to go.
Uh, I read somewhere that the leakage to the atmosphere on the high powered solar power beam to the Earth receiver is much higher than planned with the latest testing. Double digit power loss instead of the 2 to 3% expected.
“Bitcoin miner Core Scientific files for bankruptcy”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-miner-core-scientific-files-for-bankruptcy-133753430.html
And so the sweeping disaster continues in the cryto world.
“Trump suffered large business losses at the end of his presidency, report finds”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-suffered-large-business-losses-at-the-end-of-his-presidency-report-finds-154044033.html
Um, is it legal to release his tax returns to the media and public without his explicit permission ?
BTW, I think that everyone who works for the federal government, a state government, a county or parish government, and a city or town should release their income tax returns.
“Musk Says Cost-Cutting Averted $3 Billion Twitter Shortfall”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/musk-says-cost-cutting-averted-082633997.html
“(Bloomberg) — Elon Musk said Twitter Inc. was on course for $3 billion of negative cash flow before he stepped in to stem losses by dismissing more than half the company’s staff.”
Yup, Musk took over a sinking ship. And it is still sinking, just not so fast.
And the same company has a plan to put pipes inside pipes inside existing pipelines to transport hydrogen… presumably gaseous since otherwise it would freeze everything… the outer pipe would be filled with a “sweeper” inert gas, that is pumped to remove the hydrogen that leaks thru the transport pipe… no mention of where you get all the inert gas, what you do with it once it is suffused with hydrogen, how you get these pressurized gasses into and out of the existing pipelines, how you convince a pipeline operator to take their pipeline out of service long enough to do all the “armwaved” work…..
Nitrogen will be the inert gas, it is used for most inert gases nowadays. CO2 is the next most used inert gas but it is corrosive with water. And these people are freaking crazy.
“Steve Scalise privately being prepped by Republicans to snatch gavel from McCarthy: Report”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/house/scalise-privately-prepped-to-become-speaker
Oh, I like this but it won’t happen.
Hat tip to:
https://www.drudgereport.com/
How many people outside of Trump’s accountants and the IRS could even begin to decipher the return data?
It isn’t like you are going to see entries like “Deduction – Stormy Danials payola”.
As for the media, who is going to spring for the high level forensic auditing necessary with all of the big players conducting mass layoffs and Disney (ABC News) already facing political humiliation keeling before DeSantis this Spring in Tallahassee?
Chimps might do something more meaningful with the paper than the media.
Trump has played the tax return issue beautifully if you stop to think about it.
Oh, yeah, I do think SteveF has the right targeting…priorities.
I think there are special rules for the president. Or so I think I have read from maybe a reliable source. Or was that special legislation introduced by Nancy Pelosi regarding the president’s tax returns?
I think that should at least apply to all of congress and the senate. If married filing separate returns the returns of the spouse should also be public information. Redacted enough to protect their privacy, but enough left so people that elected those cretins know where, and how, they become multimillionaires on $147K a year. And still vote themselves raises because they think they don’t make enough money.
State and local I am not too concerned as they don’t have enough involvement to really affect the economy and don’t make major economic decisions that affect the economy.
I have never seen the attraction of twitter, TikTok, Snapchat. Even texting someone seems to be boring to me. I may have 10 texts a month that I send. I get more texts from companies telling me of appointments or upcoming bills. Email would work just as well.
Maybe I am just an old fart, set in my ways, unable to modernize. (Leave it alone SteveF! 🙂 ).
Too bad he couldn’t work in “harmonica.”
The job of every tax paying citizen in the U.S. is to minimize the amount paid to the IRS using whatever legal means necessary. Any loophole in the tax law is to be used vigorously to the maximum allowed. Any way possible to thwart the IRS, the congressional snot rags that conceive of the tax laws, should be used to the maximum.
If Trump can use some obscure loophole, more power to him. If Trump can justify a deduction, even if the IRS says no, take it to a judge if necessary. He has the funds to hire tax law experts and I would expect those experts to use their knowledge to the maximum amount to thwart the IRS.
I really don’t care if Trump made no payments to charity. Not my problem. There is no requirement to donate except in the minds of bleeding-heart liberals who would be recipients of such donations. I don’t care if Trump had $20K in medical bills, not my concern and none of my business. If Trump paid no taxes for any year, good for him, he played the game and met the objective. He won the game.
I do what I can to avoid taxes. I pay my property tax every other year. 2021 got paid in 2021 along with the 2020 taxes. 2022 will get paid in 2023 along with the 2023 taxes.
I think all elected officials should be required to disclose tax returns. Federal down to local. Local officials can’t influence the economy, but still lots of shenanigans going on, just at a smaller scale. We need more accountability.
Most of the shenanigans at the local level involve favors granted without any money changing hands. I don’t think tax returns would provide any real valuable information. This is based on my small town. Larger towns it may be more of an issue.
Tik tok is painful cringe boys trying to be funny, and giggly jiggly girls thinking they will remain anonymous. Also, it allows hard core porn that the onlyfans girls use to promote their porn sites.
I’m sure the chinese are using it to build dossiers and blackmail files on our young kids and adults.
Instagram apparently added short video so it’s a lot like youtube shorts. MASSIVELY addictive and a huge time sink.
Snapchat is what the kids use to talk to each other, even when they’re in the same room.
n
That would be their SS number and DOB.
“USPS to Use Billions in Federal Funds to Electrify Delivery Fleet”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/usps-to-use-billions-in-federal-funds-to-electrify-delivery-fleet
“The Postal Service plans to buy 66,000 electric delivery vehicles by 2028, with a target of acquiring only EVs after 2026.”
I foresee the USPS buying many diesel trucks with generators on them that can recharge the new delivery vans in the field.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/winter-storm-prep-national-weather-service-says-once-eneration-storm-approaching-buffalo-region
Weesa all gonnna die!
A first for my IT career today.
My employer has been steadily replacing the services provided by our mainframe with equivalent products that ran in a Windows environment.
It has taken effort over the course of 20 years. I was told in 2006 that the mainframe was going away. I never quite believed it.
Today we took down the LPARs and turned it off. There was a combined 120+ years of experience on todays team. None had actually worked on permanently decommissioning a mainframe before.
We raised a toast.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/winter-storm-prep-national-weather-service-says-once-eneration-storm-approaching-buffalo-region
Weesa all gonnna die!
Didn’t Buffalo get six feet of snow last week ?
Well, Zelensky is begging for more equipment and plugs-bucks in front of Congress. I guess we will fully fund Ukraine’s war effort (it’s buried in the 4,000+ page omnibus boondoggle). Why, I don’t know. Make the Europeans pay for it. If tRump was still around, I’m sure he’d make sure the Euros coughed up the dough. This is not going to end well. Our own military is falling apart and we are talking about “defending” Taiwan? And South Korea. And Japan. And …
Looks like classes are over for the semester. Commencement was, what, today at Noon?
Oh, a lot of places have morning and afternoon. My bad. Social distancing.
You are giving way to much credit…
@JimB
Not unusual for transmission fluid to thicken in a very cold snap . With the tiny passages involved that can cause a delay in shifting that is hard on the mechanism.
Dad recommended cycling: holding your foot on the brake, shifting into reverse, wait to feel the gears engage, then shift to drive, wait, and finally shift to reverse to back out of the driveway.
YMMV if you need to go forward.
Zelensky flew in to DC on a US Air Force plane this morning.
How much root/calvin have you typed lately?
I’m amazed that no one seems to change that default. I’ve seen it at three jobs in a row.
At least scott/tiger is a training-only database. Well, in theory.
BTW, if you need to get up to speed on the Docker Hot Skillz, I used Nigel Poulton’s “Docker Deep Dive” and worked the examples on my laptop using Docker Desktop for Windows.
The new job required all of us to get familiar with Docker and Kubernetes this year. I’ll hit the “K8s” book next week.
Kari Lake’s legal team has examined ballots in Maricopa County, AZ and found the apparent reason for the sudden equipment malfunction on election day:
https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2022/12/21/kari-lake-legal-team-finds-42-5-percent-of-ballots-examined-were-invalid-n677013
It’s going to be interesting to see what is discovered about the physical process. How is the ballot printer size changed? Is it done on-site, or can it be done remotely?
It’s not clear how this system is supposed to work. Seems like the ballots should be printed and verified before election day, not printed on demand the day they are to be used.
Please…have some consideration…
https://twitter.com/bestofnextdoor/status/1605740252957593600
@alan, try your link again.
Oh yeah, there was an earthquake in Cali.
M6.4 Earthquake – Ferndale, CA – FINAL
Situation: At 5:35 a.m. ET a magnitude 6.4 (MMI VII) earthquake occurred 7.7 miles westsouthwest of Ferndale (Humboldt County), CA at a depth of 10 miles with multiple aftershocks. 7
Tribal Nations were affected.
Lifeline Impacts:
Safety and Security: (FEMA Region IX SPOTREP #3 2:00 a.m. ET)
Significant structural damage with 27 unsafe residences@Food, Water, and Shelter: (FEMA Region IX SPOTREP #3 2:00 a.m. ET)@ 1 American Red Cross shelter established in Fortuna, CA@ City of Del Rio water system offline, boil water advisory issued for City of Del Rio and@Fortuna@Health and Medical: (FEMA Region IX SPOTREP #3 2:00 a.m. ET)@ 3 Hospitals and 1 Medical Center on emergency power, no fuel supply issues@ 11 injuries confirmed, 2 previously reported deaths were determined to not have the@earthquake as a contributing factor@Energy:@ 14,526 (25%) customers without power in Humboldt County down from a high of nearly@71K (DOE Eagle-I as of 6:30 am ET)@ Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) actively working to restore services (FEMA Region IX SPOTREP #3@2:00 a.m. ET)@Communications:@ 5 AT&T cell sites offline, numerous AT&T and Verizon sites on backup power; Cell on@Wheels requested@ No 9-1-1 outages have occurred@Transportation: (FEMA Region IX SPOTREP #3 2:00 a.m. ET)@ Route 211 at Fernbridge closed, alternate routes available
Jeez, the parser butchered that.
n
I fixed his link.
Oh, don’t worry, we are also funding Ukraine. Switzerland, of course, very indirectly.
The Ukrainian war is politically complicated, but ultimately I think supporting them was and is the right thing to do. Putin wanted to rebuild the USSR. I don’t think the West wants that. Providing weapons is a cold-blooded calculation to let someone else do the bleeding.
And increase the profits of the defense contractors, always generous campaign donors.
And, of course, 10% for the Big Guy.
That goes without saying. It’s not a coincidence that most Congresscritters are millionaires, even if they weren’t before being elected. Funny, how they always get a slice of the pork…
Staff. No tenure. Ever.